Mobile Payments to Reach $235.4 Billion in 2013: Gartner

Worldwide mobile payment transaction values will reach $235.4 billion in 2013, up 44% from 2012, according to a report. In 2012, mobile payment transactions totalled $163.1 billion. The number of mobile payment users worldwide will reach 245.2 million in 2013, up from 200.8 million in 2012, said the report by Gartner.

Asia/Pacific will overtake Africa to become the largest Region by transaction value by 2016, reaching $165 billion, said the report titled “Forecast: Mobile Payment, Worldwide, 2013 Update.” Developing markets such as India are expected drive healthy growth in the Asian region.

“We expect global mobile transaction volume and value to average 35 percent annual growth between 2012 and 2017, and we are forecasting a market worth $721 billion with more than 450 million users by 2017,” said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner.

“Nevertheless, we have lowered the forecast of total transaction value for the forecast period due to lower-than-expected growth in 2012, especially in North America and Africa,” he added.

Here are some key insights from the report

Near Field Communications’ (NFC’s) transaction value has been reduced by more 40%.

NFC will account for only about 2% of total transaction value in 2013 and 5% of the total transaction value in 2017.

Money transfers will account for 71% and merchandise purchases will account for 21% of total transaction value in 2013.

People are spending less via mobile devices than via online e-commerce services and at retail outlets.

Merchandise purchases account for about 23% of the total value forecast for 2017.

This makes money transfer a leading use case and account for almost 69 percent of the total value in 2017.

Bill payment value is expected to grow 44% in 2013 and have consistent growth through the forecast period.

Bill payments will account for about 5% of the total value forecast for 2017.

North America’s transaction value is forecast to grow 53% in 2013, reaching $37 billion, up from $24 billion in 2012.

Western Europe’s transaction value is expected to reach $29 billion in 2013, up from $19 billion in 2012.

Low adoption rate of technologies like NFC across countries is one of the reasons the research firm lowered its forecast. With more and more manufactures releasing NFC enabled device in the coming months, the NFC trend might finally catch up and help in adding to the trend of increasing use of mobile device as a payment option. Another factor is the slow traction services like Google Wallet and Isis are facing.

Last year, the Reserve Bank of India, had released draft guidelines for prepaid payment instruments in in India. According to the guidelines only banks which have been permitted to provide mobile banking transactions by the RBI will be allowed to launch mobile mobile wallets & mobile accounts.

Until mobile payment gateways and options are relaxed it will be some time before such facilities will gain widespread traction in India. Services like Interbank Mobile Payment Service, which enables payments on mobile phones, is also slowly picking up in the country.